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'My people's prison is my
anguish'
By Manuel Vazquez Portal,
manuelvazquezportal@yahoo.com. Posted on
Wed, Jul. 06, 2005 in The Miami Herald.
My prison is not the most horrendous of
all. I left it several weeks ago. But behind
me remain many prisoners. Their imprisonment
causes me pain, like my own imprisonment
did. Left behind are 61 of my brothers,
sentenced during Cuba's Black Spring in
2003. Left behind are more than 300 prisoners
of conscience. Left behind, too, are more
than 11 million Cubans, locked up on an
imprisoned island. One's individual prison
becomes insignificant when an entire nation
suffers.
On June 23, 2004, I arrived at my home
in Havana after enduring -- for one year,
three months and four days -- the cruelties
of solitary confinement in the penitentiaries
of Boniato and Aguadores, both in Santiago
de Cuba. My warders were really not freeing
me. At most, they were transferring me to
the giant prison that my country has become.
By releasing me on parole, they didn't give
me back my freedom. They were merely returning
me to my family so the that imprisonment
could be less rigorous. But I continued
to suffer.
Another long year went by. I waited to
leave my country. Once again, I found myself
overwhelmed by the woes of an ordinary Cuban.
My wife racking her brains in a kitchen
bereft of provisions. My son parroting obligatory
slogans in his inner-city school. My neighbors
dangling in bunches from the doors of a
cargo truck converted into a bus. Long blackouts.
Lack of drinking water. The city, crumbling
and on crutches, collapsing all about. The
pestilence of sewers flowing down the sidewalks.
The landscape of an interminable post-war.
Mile-long speeches by the Grand Warder.
Lies in the newspapers. Carnival-like marches
by people waving hypocritical flags.
I was again the inmate I had been before
March 19, 2003, when the political-police
forces ransacked my house, arrested me and
sentenced me -- after a summary trial without
the most minimal legal guarantees -- to
18 years of deprivation of freedom.
I waited for freedom. Bars of silence gagged
me. Bars of fear -- for myself, for my family
-- incarcerated me. The generous hand of
a magnificent country stretched out to save
me. I came to the United States last June
7. I was able to speak out loud, without
fear of political-police informers.
I managed to laugh, argue passionately,
shake the hand of a friend who didn't have
to look around to ensure that we weren't
watched by someone who might rat on him
for greeting a political pariah. I saw to
it that my wife could choose what she wanted
to cook, that my son could have the toy
that he always wanted, that I could tell
the media what I thought, that I could write
without worrying that I might be imprisoned
for doing so.
I came, I listened, I touched freedom in
the flesh, and became more deeply convinced
that the Cuban people live in a prison.
Their warders lead them, blindfolded, toward
disaster; they carry them, muted by fear,
toward the precipice. And that's the most
horrendous prison of all. My prison was
my pride; my people's prison is my anguish.
I shall stop suffering when the iron gates
that imprison my country are flung open.
Manuel Vázquez Portal, an independent
journalist, was one of 75 dissidents summarily
imprisoned by Cuba's government in 2003
and one of 14 released last year for health
reasons.
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